Twas a Starry Night
by Rei Nokato
Summary: Black skies so blind. White stars so brilliant. Sal's POV.


Wishy-washy attempt at writing in Sal's wistful POV. No flaming, please. The style varies to how I usually write. Sort of like an unspoken monologue. I didn't edit this much out of fear the flow might wane. If there even _is_ a flow.

**DISCLAIMER**: Don't own anyone, not making money by writing this.

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Black skies; so blind.

White skies; so brilliant.

Is it by some deplorable quip of fate that I lay here?

I was not born to reap benefits, but to enlighten those weary souls that cried, their sobs shuddering the night, when they realised we are not even-handed. A world dominated by human greed, fed only by other people's suffering, is a world doomed to disparity. Granted the wrong deck, it is at random our destinies are made demountable. However, whatever cards you may hold – be it you are born into wealth or poverty, love or animosity, congruity or alienation; be it the man ten seats away clearly has an advantage over the other players – inequality gives birth to something greater:

Free will.

We are given different cards, yet we are also given different seats; different goals; different mindsets. Because a player is residing at the head of the table, does not mean he has instant inheritance to an easy pass in life.

For life is not to be underestimated. Per say the image of a rich family is seen as the pinnacle of achievements – what did they do to deserve a state of well-being considered a rarity amongst the dense populace of our race? Would that equate to a poor family in hard labour for the entirety of their time who, although they have worked to a greater extent than the rich family ever will, they therefore deserve nothing?

No. Try methods to suppress the true meaning of life itself, and the afterlife to follow will be a most difficult one.

Why was it I didn't apply this to my ultimate verdict? That although I had served as a reaper in life, I was again handed the task of escorting souls? The answer… I was naïve. I was misguided into misguidance, believing the afterlife may hold virtue higher than the Land of the Living. That humans – after dying – would have left their pride back home. I believed my theory, of hardship eventually equating to a perpetual logic of completion, was correct in that situation, but I was wrong. I questioned, I did. Was I dumbfounded by raw conceit? Had I shoved hardships I was due to endure on to those around me? A reaper is, in terms of humanity's chain of power, a position at the very bottom of it. Yet there had to be reason for why I was again assigned to the inferior category. I then began believing human greed must rule over this world as it had in the previous, and that to reach eternal rest meant to truly be worthy of it: to live out two lifetimes of hardship rather than one!

I was a fool. On the contrary, I did have a purpose to serve. And I feel honoured by the design I was chosen for. By God, there must be some force driving us. I cannot move, and my mind is at last feeling soothed. I am finally _permitted_ to wonder if I was selected for this finale, as it strikes the beginning for so many others. Manuel and his Meche are reunited, the delay forced upon them bringing them together, and with his debt paid, Manny is conscious now of his past mistakes; why he was appointed the part of reaper in the first place. He had to be deficient in gratification for those years he worked for the Department of Death. He had to spring-leap out of sloth, conversely increasing his display of selfishness. And to bounce it back, the initial threats were what motivated him to depart on the journey he did, but on that journey he met people; people far worse off than him, in life _and_ death, prearranged tragic paths to walk. It was then Manuel discovered the reward in helping people. His journey's focus became the salvation of Miss Colomar, the one she deserved and the one he felt he had taken away. True splendor – that is what Manuel discovered.

He is a changed man now, and the saint's duty was to implement it. In essence, that correspondence is purer than several.

We are not forced to slam our hands down.

Given an advantage may mean having less courage.

We may leave, cards in hand, and accept our fate without regretting our separation from the table.

We have freed a seat for another. Knowing that my demise means the divine advancement of a friend…

I rest in peace.

Eva. My Eva. I could not have foreseen this goal I am currently at, not without your direction. You… I did not love until you. Love is insulted to be cruelly mistaken for something shallow and futile. Without you, I… I would not have ever understood. I would not have ever been able to grasp this concept. Sometimes, as a pathological urgency, we must communicate with our _souls_. This concept I could not have comprehended had your unwavering atonement whisked itself away.

I know that you know you are next in command. Your assistance and steady enheartenment formed my being here now. My destiny. My loss will break the gild that prepared you for strengthening me – that gild is no longer your burden.

Black skies; so blind as to not pertain purpose, to feel what I feel now – a sense of completion.

White stars; so brilliant that they tug the ignorant's sleeve to enable them a fairer distance from their fate, despite the light they have lacked for too long.

I am glad to be aware that my state will not hinder progress for the future.

I would have thought a night of calamities would be soaked in rain, clouds over these endless skies and the reality of trials.

Beauty… is the sky. I am blessed tonight.

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End file.
